


bad news

by tarquin



Category: The Creatures (Youtube RPF)
Genre: Gen, SUPERCAST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:04:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4717070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tarquin/pseuds/tarquin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tammy gets the phone call on her way out of the thrift shop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bad news

**Author's Note:**

> I CAN'T BELIEVE I NEVER POSTED THE BEST THING I'VE EVER WRITTEN

Tammy gets the phone call on her way out of the thrift shop. Her arms, heavy laden with shopping bags, flail momentarily as she tries to catch her handbag in a frantic swipe, and she only succeeds in doing so once she reaches her truck that’s parked near by. Loud crinkly plastic takes up most of what she hears when she answers the call. She tosses her belongings in the front seat as she works to press the phone to her ear, saying with a short breath “Hello?”

The response is tough to make out at first, but her father’s voice is unmistakable. It’s a low and wobbly grumble that’s only coherent to the girl because she’s been listening to it all her life. In a short tone, she hears her father say, “Tamsin.” And her stomach sinks.

He only ever calls her by her proper name when something bad’s happened. Like that time a wild raccoon got into the house and had him cornered, and so she’d had to come downstairs armed with a laundry basket and rubber gloves. Or that time with her mother at the clinic.

“Yeah, daddy?” She responds too fast, getting into the driver’s side of the truck. He responds, but most of what he says is lost in rustling plastic and the slam of the car door. She tries not to get too nervous, this could be anything.

“Say again?” She says, breathing in the sharp scent of her car air freshener (lemon pine,) to calm her nerves.

“I said, your brother’s in the hospital.” He repeats, and her insides twist and go all cold. She doesn’t respond immediately, and so he continues. “Somethin’ happened this afternoon and they called me, all panicked and shit. I’d go down there to see what happened but I’m indecent, “ (Drunk,) “And your uncle’s got a big drywalling thing happenin’ today so he can’t make it. Go check in on ‘em, would you?”

She has so many questions, but her father’s already given as much information as he will. The fact that he spoke more than three direct sentences, as intoxicated as his voice implies, is impressive enough. Tammy’s grip on the phone is like steel as she answers in a neat and gentle voice, “Yeah. Sure, daddy. Alright.”

“Good girl, Tamsin.” He says, and the line goes dead.

xx

She won’t panic, she won’t over think this. The engine in her truck will turn over and she’ll pull neatly out of the parking lot, into afternoon traffic. She’ll take ’95 as it’s the quickest way to the county hospital, and when Marshal doesn’t pick up her calls she won’t curse his name to the Lord above.

By the time she makes her way into the building a cold sweat is forming at the nape of her neck and she’s fiddled with her hair so much that it lies wayward and unkempt on her right shoulder. She tries to hide it with even steps and careful posture, but her face, she’s sure, reads that she’s terrified.

Three steps inside and Tammy’s just about to head to the nearest available information desk when she hears her name getting called rapidly to her right. She turns just in time to see Chip scrabbling towards her from the waiting area, nearly tipping over a few of the chairs in his way as he goes.

When he reaches her his hand shoots out to grab her wrist, to pull her close and she can feel how cold his grip is, how he’s shaking. She’s hardly even processed this and he’s carrying on, almost making a scene in front of the hospital staff as he repeats a few times over, “Something bad happened to Marshal, Tammy. Something real bad.”

Instinct takes over then, as she allows herself to be tugged as close to the double doors leading to the emergency rooms as they can go without reprimand. She lets Chip run out of breath next, and after that her free hand moves to wipe away the hair from in front of his eyes. She adjusts his glasses so they’re not askew and her voice is softer than usual (a feat,) when she asks him, “Wait, you’re okay?”

Suffice it to say, it’s not her older sibling who has been causing the Bowdrie family trouble all their lives. Whereas Marshal has always been the resigned one, short spoken like their father with a penchant for getting out of scrapes, Chip has always been the one to get them in trouble in the first place. Tammy, ever the third wheel, has long since resigned herself to sitting back and watching from afar.

So to find herself stood here next to her fraternal twin, finding him unscathed physically but in a mental panic, she almost doesn’t know how to react. All the way here she’d been mentally rehearsing ways to calm him down in the hospital bed, how to grasp his attention if they needed to needle him, or how to talk him down from anything worse. But he’s here in one piece, right in front of her, and Marshal is nowhere in sight, and it doesn’t exactly make sense.

“Yeah, I’m alright.” Chip answers slowly, cooling down from his earlier panic. Now that Tammy’s rhythmically running her nails down the top of his arm and making eye contact with him, he seems to have more of a grasp on himself. “But Marshal, oh Tammy you shoulda been there, it was awful! There was a whole bunch of shouting and fire, and speakin’a fire we lost our jobs too, but the worst is that Marshal,”

“Excuse me.” Comes the sharp voice of someone from behind the two. “Are you here for Marshal Bowdrie?”

Tammy pats her brother’s arm to show him it’s okay, then turns to give the person, a nurse by the looks of her scrubs, her full attention. “Yes, I’m his sister.”

“Good.” She says a little too coldly, and from behind Tammy, Chip flinches. “We have some paperwork that needs to be filled out by a relative or spouse, and when we tried to approach your other brother here, he wasn’t in a state to be cooperative. Do you think you’re better suited for the task?”

Tammy nods and she’s handed a clipboard with stacks upon stacks of paper, as well as a singular ballpoint pen. From behind her, Chip asks, “How’s my brother? Is he gonna be okay? Ms, how is Marshal?”

The nurse looks fully fed-up with Chip’s outburst before he’s even finished it, and her answer is blunt. “I’m afraid there’s no way to know currently. He’s under a physician’s care, and as soon as there’s an update to his status we’ll let you know. As I’ve specified, several times now.”

Chip, apparently missing how icy and calloused her answer had been, nods furiously and with much thanks. “Thank. Thank you.” He responds, and the nurse plasters on another cold expression as she answers, “No problem. Now, Ms. Bowdrie, here’s what I need from you,”

xx 

The next hours of Tammy’s life are spent sporadically. Whether it’s periodically soothing Chip, filling in answers on papers, calling Uncle Tommy for the answers she can’t fill in and getting an earful about disrupting the drywalling business process, and giving Chip more vending machine change, it doesn’t seem to end. Until finally the papers are all filled in and Chip has consumed all the little pretzel snack bags one person can manage. After she hands in the forms she phones her father as well, filing him in on the vague details that she could wring out of Chip to the best of her ability, and promising to keep him updated as best she can.

And then, finally, as Chip stares at the ceiling, counting the little dots in the tile next to her while she peruses a magazine from 2005, a voice floats over to them from the reception desk.

“Tamsin? Chipander?”

The magazine snaps shut in her hands and she gives Chip’s arm a shake to get his attention. The pair makes their way over to the desk, where a nurse different than the one before greets them with kinder eyes.

“Your brother and his physician are waiting upstairs to speak with you. Marshal’s wound was inflamed and in need of immediate surgery so he’ll likely be out when you get up there, but he’ll wake up sooner than later. In the meantime, hopefully you can fill in some blanks about what happened.”

Tammy nods, Chip speaks up from beside her. “Is my brother going to be okay?”

“He’s not in critical condition, but he won’t be leaving the hospital any time soon.”

When that answer is met with cold silence and the mental reception of water on a brick wall, Tammy tells him “He’s gonna be okay, Chip.”

Finally, finally her bother relaxes and a little grin appears on his face. “Oh, oh thank God.” He says, voice watery and lax. “That’s wonderful.”

Tammy’s holding it back as best she can, but Chip’s reaction is very much her own. If Hurricaine Chipander hadn’t preceded her here and given every staff member a taste of good old Bowdrie Panic, she might be just as emotional and wet-eye’d as he is right now. But, unless they want to be ejected from the building, she knows has to keep herself in check. As she does Chip, whom she pulls in for a cloying hug as the nurse hands over all the information she needs.

xx

Two floors up, after a short delegation about letting Chip push the buttons and all that, a doctor is waiting for them. Immediately the man sees Tammy and her brother and launches into a prepared speech, something about the severity of the wound, something about the condition of Marshal’s lungs, something about how the bullet wound had gone septic in the hours since the incident, but it falls off of Tammy like smoke. Chip doesn’t even pretend to hear him, just steamrolls right past to his brother’s bedside, calling his name already even though he’s still out like a light.

Tammy faces the doctor with the prettiest smile she can muster and tells him to hold his thoughts. That she was very worried about her brother and she’ll speak to him soon, thank you. The Doctor’s voice carries in after her, Ms’ Bowdrie, please, but Tammy pays him no mind.

Marshal’s still passed out in the hospital bed, as predicted. He looks no more worse for wear than usual, maybe a little less pallor to his skin and, is that hair singed? Chip had mentioned a fire after all, oh dear. But he’s still Marshal. And the monitor beside him beeps in clean succession. For the first time since this afternoon, Tammy feels like she can breathe.

Chip pulls up a seat right close to the hospital bed, nearly hovering over the side to be the first thing his brother will see when he stirs. Tammy takes the opposite side, not crowding as much but staying where she’ll be able to see if anything changes. And, after a fair wait and a long discussion with the doctor later, something does.

Chip’s regressed to slumping back in his seat, trying to keep up with Wheel-Of-Fortune on tv and keep an eye on Marshal at the same time. Tammy’s calling into work, telling them she might miss her shift, and apologizing for the inconvenience. She’s just hung up when there’s motion from beside her, as Marshal’s head sways and his eyes blink open.

“Wh. H-huh?”

“Marshal!”

Chip’s back at his side like a trained dog in an instant. He’s calling out to him and asking if he’s okay, how he feels, and Marshal looks more confused, trapped animal than person for a moment.

“Oh. Hey, Chip.” Marshal says, his voice even more gravelly than usual as he rouses. “What’s goin’ on?”

“What’s goin’ on is that you go yourself hurt.” Tammy says, and it comes out like a reprimand. Marshal’s heavy head swings to look at her.

“Tammy?” He asks. “Shouldn’t you be working?”

“Not when my brother’s in this bad a shape, no.” Tammy replies, patting his hand beside him. He’s got all sorts of beepers and tubes stuck into him, and he lifts his hand to squint at them a moment later.

“Huh.” He says. And then, “Hey, you got any cigarettes?”

There are several answers Tammy could give to this, but she knows her brother well, as well as his moodswings and stubbornness. Pointing out that this is a hospital will get her nowhere, and saying she’s out will only get her sent on a retrieval mission for more. So instead she rolls her eyes and says, “Yeah, in the car. But you gotta wait until you get outta here and better first.”

His head hits the pillow with a thump. “Oh.”

“Don’t worry, Marshal.” Chip says, easily the most upbeat voice in the room. “I’ll keep you company until then. Don’t worry.”

Somehow, this doesn’t calm him.

After that doctors come in and give Marshal much the same talk they did Tammy, about recovery time and abstinence from drinking and the dangers of tobacco. All of which, much like before with the other two, seems to brush right off him before it can even sink in. But it isn’t long before the trio are alone again, with warm clear painkillers being pumped through Marshal’s body and Chip dozing in the seat next to him. Tammy keeps her hand on top of her brother’s, a weight or a comfort there for him.

“Tammy.” Marshal says in a quiet voice, and when she looks up she finds Chip is out beside them, slumped over with drool at his lips.

“Yeah, Marshal?” She asks,

“We got fired today, Tammy. But you can’t let dad find out, alright? With all the bills that’ll come from this, he can’t-“

“Shh.” Tammy says to him softly, tapping her fingers on his wrist. “Don’t you worry about that now, that’s not your priority. We’ll take care of all of that later brother, for now you just rest up.”

Her words seem to have the desired effect on him; he nods and relaxes back into his pillow. And as Tammy starts to run work hour numbers through her head, as well as pawnshop rates for the things she’s purchased today, Marshal slips off into a light sleep.


End file.
